there's no one who is saying we have to widen the deficit or the deficit, as wide as it is, it's not a problem. everyone exceeds to it, but the debate is about how to get it done, and also, the nature of the government that's the consequence of how it gets done. if you spend more, government grows. if you shrink the budget, government contracts, and that has implications for the republic that have been debated since jefferson and hmm lton. it's an ongoing debate always in america, but if you think about what's been accomplished in the last year, everyone knows we have to solve the problem. how we solve it resulted in the impasse, but the fact everyone agrees it needs to be solved is really the most important thing. >> but it seems to me that it's a math problem, and as you said, if you've got, you know, slow, but stable growth for an extended period of time here, then ultimately, revenues have to go up and expenditures have to go down. neither of which is particularly healthy in terms of fostering economic growth. if you have taxes going up in the united states and expenditures go do